TruthBook Religious News Blog

The financial crisis and demographic shifts are reshaping the Jewish community in ways we could hardly have imagined a generation ago. Historian and Brandeis University professor Jonathan Sarna, author of A Time for Every Purpose: Letters to a Young Jew , sheds light on what history can teach us about Jewish revival in uncertain times.

What happened the last time the Jewish community faced a financial crisis of this magnitude?

After the last frightening economic downturn, following the 1929 stock-market crash, American Jewry turned inward, paying little heed to what was going on abroad, particularly in Germany. As the American Jewish Year Book gently put it in 1931: “The Jews of the United States did not during the past year watch the situation of their overseas co-religionists with the same concentration as in the preceding twelve months.” We were, as a result, less prepared than we should have been to help the Jews of Europe after Hitler rose to power in 1933.

In addition, Jewish education was widely abandoned in the late 1920s and 1930s. The number of students enrolled in New York City’s Jewish schools dropped by 22% between 1928 and 1935, and in Chicago enrollment plunged 16% in the six months from December 1930 to June 1931. We paid a big price for these declines: Those young Jews never made up for what they lost. We need to be careful nowadays to avoid sacrificing Jewish education to economic expediency.

Were there any positive repercussions of the Great Depression?

Yes, Jews turned primarily to one another during the 1930s, relying on ties of faith and kinship to carry them through the hard times. Traditions of self-help and mutual aid overcame religious, ideological, and generational differences. These values have been forgotten in some circles during the more recent years of plenty, but they bear remembering: All Jews are family, and thus responsible for helping one another.

Also, the government took more responsibility for social services. Jews were initially reticent about accepting this welfare, but it ultimately transformed postwar Jewish life. Money freed up from social services was devoted to Israel and Jewish education. The New Deal also modeled for Jews the benefits of centralization at both the national and local levels.

How are today’s economic woes reshaping American Jewish life?

A new era of belt-tightening is threatening a number of bold initiatives fueled by the great rise of Jewish wealth in the ’80s and the ’90s. Compounding the problem is the fact that while different sectors of the American Jewish community are busy explaining to all who will listen why their particular area of Jewish service has to be preserved at all costs, no one has put forth serious ideas about how to cut the Jewish communal budget by one-third when Jewish foundations, even excluding the Bernard Madoff losses, are approximately one-third poorer than they were this time last year. Over the next few years we will see which organizations in Jewish life have kept strong balance sheets, budgeted prudently, and built broad-scale support, and which have not. At a time when individual needs are rising and communal means are falling, the Jewish community will have to engage in a kind of organizational triage. My guess is that many Jewish educational institutions, several Jewish museums, and some other Jewish organizations will not survive.

This is just a small snippet of a lengthy article which asks many more thoughtful questions regarding Judaism and the economic crisis. Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: America, crisis, economics, Judaism, The Depression, The New Deal

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Monday, July 06, 2009

Women’s Spiritual Voices: Muslim, Jewish, and Christian

July 2nd, 2009

On May 21, 2009 the Moroccan American Cultural Center and the American Jewish Committee sponsored an interfaith panel discussion in New York City on “Women’s Spiritual Voices: Crossing Continents, Finding Common Ground.” Panelists explored the roles of women religious leaders in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, and they included three Moroccan women, Fatima Zahra Salhi, Nezha Nassi, and Ilham Chafik, who are “mourchidates” or religious counselors; Mahara’t Sara Hurwitz, a member of the rabbinic staff at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, New York; Rabbi Stephanie Dickstein, spiritual care coordinator at the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services in New York City; the Reverend Elizabeth Garnsey, associate rector at the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City; and moderator Sarah Sayeed of the Interfaith Center of New York. In 2006, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI created the mourchidates program for women to serve as religious counselors in community health programs, women’s detention centers, and mosques. Fifty mourchidates are chosen from approximately 1,000 highly qualified applicants, and they receive intensive training in 32 subject areas including law, psychology and theology. They must also have learned at least half of the Qur’an by heart. Watch excerpts from the panel discussion edited by Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly intern Juliana Comer, a senior at James Madison University.

Please click on "external source for access to the complete article, including video.

Labels: Christianity, interfaith, Islam, Judaism, spirituality

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Friday, March 06, 2009

JCPA Approves Effort To Build Dialogue With Muslim Groups

By Nathan Guttman
Published March 04, 2009,

Washington — The Jewish community’s main umbrella organization for domestic policy has struck a significant blow against internal resistance to dialogue with Muslims.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs adopted a resolution March 2, calling for local and national Jewish groups to build coalitions with Muslim Americans and to oppose anti-Muslim bias.

The resolution comes 18 months after Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism — America’s largest Jewish religious denomination — broke new ground by addressing a major Islamic organization, despite strong criticism from some quarters of the Jewish community.

Previous attempts at engaging with the Muslim community have left some Jewish activists bruised and scarred by skepticism and harsh criticism from their fellow Jews.

One such activist is Rabbi Michael Paley of New York, who warned a room filled with community leaders, “It’s a dangerous conversation.” The danger, Paley said, is not from what is being said inside the room, but rather from how it will be perceived by other Jews.

In August 2007, after already being deeply involved in dialogue with the Muslim community, Paley spoke out in defense of the principal of a planned Arabic-language middle school in Brooklyn who had come under fire mostly from Jewish scholars. The critics accused her, wrongly, of being a “9/11 denier”— someone who rejected Muslim or Arab responsibility for the World Trade Center attack.

Following his public comments on the principal’s behalf, Paley, a scholar-in-residence and director of UJA-Federation of New York’s Jewish resource center, was ordered not to speak on the issue anymore. He told communal activists attending the plenum that pursuing Jewish-Muslim ties requires some courage.

Rabbi Jack Moline of Agudas Achim Congregation in Arlington, Va., also encountered criticism when trying to promote dialogue between Jews and Muslims. He said that each attempt to raise the issue brought about challenges from congregants “who believe Islam is essentially anti-Jewish.”

The issue boils down to the question of what makes a legitimate partner on the Muslim side.

But Rabbi Schneier noted that at the behest of Jewish groups, ISNA president Sayeed Syeed intervened with the King of Saudi Arabia last year to convince him to disinvite the Jewish anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta from a high-profile international gathering of religious leaders the monarch was sponsoring.

“This was unprecedented,” he said in an interview last October. “This is the kind of relationship we have been working for.”

A recent Gallup Poll of Muslim Americans, the largest ever conducted, suggested another possible common ground for Muslim and Jews — political affiliation. Both groups have similar voting patterns: Half of the Muslims identify as Democrats, a third as Independents and only a small minority as Republicans. The survey also found American Muslim women to be more highly educated than women in every religious group except Jews.

The JCPA plenum supported the pro-dialogue resolution by a large majority.

The Reform movement’s Mark Pelavin, who presented the resolution, stressed that many local Jewish communities across the country are “looking for guidance” on how to go about reaching out to Muslims.

But the American Jewish Congress’s acting co-executive director, Marc Stern, voted against the resolution and argued that guidance is exactly what it lacks. “It talks only about the easy issues,” he said, noting that the resolution does not address the problems of choosing Muslim interlocutors and setting the agenda for a dialogue.

Labels: American Muslims, dialogue, interfaith, Jewish-American, Judaism, Nathan Guttman

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Friday, December 12, 2008

The History of Religion

The History of Religion, from 3000 BC to 200 AD, in about 2 minutes. Taken from mapsofwar.com

Labels: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, maps, religion

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Monday, September 29, 2008

Faiths unite for peace

by Millie Willis

Most of the news we hear out of the Middle East usually describes the violence among Israelis, Palestinians and Muslims. We seldom hear about, and often are unaware of, the heroic efforts among those citizens who are saying "Enough!" and are creating numerous interfaith groups working together to bring peace to the Middle East.

The Jerusalem Peacemakers is one of those groups. It is a network of independent interfaith peacemakers. Their purpose is to inform others about their work; encourage peace and healing in the Holy Land; nurture forgiveness, justice and collaboration, so that all people in the Holy Land may build a new future.

The Peacemakers are increasing in numbers, and include Christians, Muslims, Jews and Palestinians, men, women and children of all ages throughout the Holy Land.

On Sept. 7, we were invited to hear two representatives from the Jerusalem Peacemakers at an Interfaith Forum, held at the Antrim Chapel at Roanoke College. They were brought here by Sam Rasoul, a candidate for Congress and a member of the local Valley Character Interfaith Committee.

Rasoul introduced the two guest speakers to a sparse audience and moderated the forum. Eliyahu McLean and Ghassan Manasra represented the Jerusalem Peacemakers. Their topic was "Reclaiming Religion as a Source for Peace: Tools for Peacemakers in Judaism and Islam."

We learned that McLean was born in California and 10 years ago moved to Israel. He lives in Jerusalem and his faith is Judaism. He is active in Israeli-Palestinian dialogue in Nablus and Eilat. Until 2003, he was director of the Israel Chapter of the Peacemaker Community, Mevakshei Shalom, which serves as an umbrella for many projects integrating spirituality and reconciliation efforts.

Manasra is a Sufi Muslim. He is the director of Anwar il-Salaam, a Muslim peace and dialogue center based in Nazareth under the guidance of his father, Sufi sheikh Abdul Salaam Manasra. His father serves as the head of the Qadiri Sufi order in the Holy Land. He is currently running a project that brings together Jewish and Muslim high school principals and educators for study and training in religious sources for peace.

This year, Ghassan Manasra was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

They told their stories of their struggles and successes of meeting together with rabbis, sheikhs and priests and the many citizens from these areas of unrest. The Jerusalem Peacemakers' efforts to bring peace include interfaith camps and meetings where they try to understand each other and build respect through interfaith dialogue. Some Jewish, Palestinian and Muslim women leaders are working with their counterparts to initiate various movements, i.e. The Women's Partnership for Peace in the Middle East, Women's Interfaith Encounter Association and Culture of Peace Educational Program for schoolchildren.

These efforts are reminiscent of the heroism in the biblical battle story of David and Goliath. They are all working against great odds and with no support from their own governments.

The forum was uplifting, hopeful and educational. It is reassuring to learn that individual of different faiths are working together for peace in their part of the world. My appreciation to Rasoul for his great effort in bringing these two Jerusalem Peacemakers to Roanoke.

Labels: Christianity, Holy Land, interfaith, Jerusalem Peacemakers, Judaism, Millie Willis, Muslims, Palestinians

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Friday, August 15, 2008

Hell: Some believe it exists, others fear it, many do not

Posted by Charles Honey | The Grand Rapids Press
August 09, 2008

Believers in hell decline

...for more and more Americans, hell is a myth. In a survey released this summer by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, just 59 percent of 35,000 respondents said they believe in a hell "where people who have led bad lives, and die without being sorry, are eternally punished."

That's down from the 71 percent who said they believed in hell in a 2001 Gallup survey. And it is lower than the 74 percent who said they believe in heaven in the recent Pew poll.

The heaven-hell gap is reflected locally. In a 1999 Press survey of West Michigan residents, 84 percent said they believed in heaven compared to 72 percent for hell.

Skepticism about hell is growing even in evangelical churches and seminaries, says one local theologian.

"In a pluralistic, post-modern world, students are having a more difficult time with (the idea of) people going to hell forever because they didn't believe the right thing," says Mike Wittmer, professor of systematic theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary.

"That's the biggest question out there right now: 'Would God send someone to hell if they were someone as good as me, but didn't believe what I believe?' "

It was easier to believe in hell 20 years ago when missionaries tried to convert people in far-flung places, Wittmer says. In today's global village, many live next to good, non-Christian neighbors and wonder why an all-powerful, loving God wouldn't eventually empty out hell, Wittmer says.

"I've noticed in the last five years how that view is making inroads even in conservative churches, whereas five years ago it wasn't even uttered or discussed," he adds.

Americans' optimism and tolerance for diversity complements a growing view of God as benevolent, not judgmental, other experts say.

The believers

The Pew survey showed the biggest believers in hell are evangelical Protestants, African-American Protestants and Muslims. Sizable majorities of Jews, Buddhists and Hindus, as well as atheists, agnostics, and the rest of the unaffiliated, say they do not believe.

Islamic beliefs

At the Islamic Center and Mosque of West Michigan on Burton Street SE, Imam Sharif Sahibzada also listens for the devil's footsteps. Though faithfully following God, Sahibzada says he nevertheless fears hell.

Jewish viewpoint

Although many Jews believe in neither hell nor heaven, others have varied views of the afterlife, says Rabbi David Krishef of Congregation Ahavas Israel.

One is that souls go to a place called Gehenna, often translated as hell in the Bible. It is derived from a burning valley south of Jerusalem where garbage was dumped and children sacrificed. Their souls are purified in a kind of purgatory before most go to heaven, but some are so evil they are punished or utterly destroyed, Krishef says.

He tends to believe in the latter as the fate of unrepentant evil-doers such as Hitler, Osama bin Laden and Yigal Amir, the assassin of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In any case, the morality by which one lives is the key, he says.
Press Photo/Lance WynnCarmella Conway, 85, a Dominican Sister at Marywood Health Center, said she believes in a gracious God who relies on people to help save others from hell.

Helping others

How we live can keep a lot of people out of hell, if you ask Sister Carmella Conway.

She is a Grand Rapids Dominican Sister who spent 55 years teaching religion. She believes in a gracious God who relies on people to help save others from hell, both on earth and beyond.

"We can transform the world by helping others," Sister Conway says following a morning Mass at Marywood, the Dominican motherhouse. "We're kind of guilty if anybody goes to hell."

Starvation, war, lack of charity: These sins make life hellish for many, she argues. Between God's grace and people's faithful work, very few if any will go to hell, she says.

"I think we're going to be surprised when we get there," she adds with a smile.

So does Sister Marjorie Vangsness, 91, who flatly says she does not think about hell.

"I think about the fact God loves us unconditionally, and that God has given us union with God," says Sister Vangsness, a native of Iron Mountain who taught at Aquinas College. "I'm inclined to go along with those who think maybe there's nobody in hell, that God helps all of us to be with him."

Ultimately, we need to accept the mystery of life after death, she says. Sister Emma Kulhanek agrees, but is confident about where she will go.

"If we live as we can best live, then I'm going to heaven," says Sister Kulhanek, 78, a former teacher and principal. "There's a lot of pain just in this world. It's what we do with it that makes the difference."

-- The New York Times News Service contributed to this story

Labels: Americans, evangelicals, God, heaven, hell, Islam, Judaism, Pew survey, religion

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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Valley's religions seek 'common good'

By Jason Monaco, Robert B. Lennick and Sharon Joseph
July 25, 2008

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Every major religion in the world has this concept among its teachings. Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and other faiths share this imperative. At its heart, this teaching is about finding the common good.
Is
Working together for the common good promotes ethical, moral, and spiritual values into all areas of our common lives -- economics, commerce, trade, and international relations -- as well as personal virtues, to advance understanding and action on major local and global issues by civil society, private enterprise, the public sector, governments, and national and international institutions, leading to the promotion of collaborative policy solutions to the challenges posed at the present times to all of the humanity.

In Islam, you can find volumes upon volumes of practices, laws and recommendations, the application of which perpetuate and enhance the common good of all, as is commanded by Allah (God) in verse 104 of chapter 3 of Holy Quran: ''Let there be among you a community who enjoin good and forbid evil; it is they that shall be successful.'' That is further emphasized by the Prophet Mohammad in a narration reported by Jabir bin Abdullah in Sahih Bukhari: ''Enjoining all that is good is charity.''

Among Christian teachers, perhaps it was the great St. Paul who best described the common good. In his letter to a young church in Corinth, he talked about working together as different parts of the body -- each part being important, each part having a job to do, each job essential to the body working as a finely tuned instrument. And, he reminds us that no one is left out: ''To each is given a gift of the spirit for the common good.''

In Judaism, we find a living ethic of social justice where the verse, ''Remember the heart of the stranger,'' is repeated no less than 36 times in the Torah. The common good begins with empathy for others and a recognition that unless each individual internalizes the challenges of others we become a collection of private experiences, rather than a caring and committed community.

We must step outside of our comfort zone. We must join hands with others and develop systems that ease the pain and suffering of those facing hardships. What purpose does religion serve if it does not awaken an individual's concern for all human life; for the ''common good?''

God is the author of creation. In this life, all human beings face difficulties and hardships. We must look at the difficulties of this life as an opportunity to become better human beings; to become closer to the Creator of the heavens and the earth. We must cultivate our hearts, and by serving others, we can strive toward this end.

Jason Abdullah Monaco of Allentown is outreach coordinator for the Muslim Association of the Lehigh Valley. The Rev. Sharon Solt Joseph is pastor of Church of the Manger UCC Church in Bethlehem. Robert B. Lennick is rabbi at Congregation Keneseth Israel in Allentown.

Labels: Christianity, God, Golden Rule, interfaith, Islam, Jason Monaco, Judaism, religion, Robert B. Lennick, Sharon Joseph

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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Religion Necessary to Survive Our Century

Published: June 03, 2008

Religion Necessary to Survive Our Century

By Krzys Wasilewski

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair unveiled last Saturday that uniting the world's three largest religions will be his lifetime goal. Blair, who once said that God would be his judge on Iraq, launched a foundation that will work towards the peaceful coexistence of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Although while premier Tony Blair urged British politicians not to perform American-style "chest beating," now he wants religion to play a leading role in the 21st century. At the opening conference of his new foundation, Blair admitted that "Religious faith will be of the same significance to the 21st Century as political ideology was to the 20th Century."

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation was launched on May 30, 2008, in New York City. The invited guests, among who was Former US President Bill Clinton, heard Blair saying that "the world [was] going tumultuous change" and, to address new issues, world leaders would have to discover a set of rules which could guide them in their efforts. According to the former British prime minister, religion is the answer.

Goals that Blair set up for his foundation may, in his own words, "sound impossibly idealistic," but after greater scrutiny are achievable. The foundation's website lists the three most important points: to promote respect and understanding between the major religions; to make the case for faith as a force for good; and to encourage inter-faith initiatives to tackle global poverty and conflict.

Faith is so important, says Blair, because the contemporary world brings distant communities closer than in the previous centuries. "Here is the crucial point. Globalization is pushing people together. Interdependence is reality. Peaceful co-existence is essential. If faith becomes a countervailing force, pulling people apart, it becomes destructive and dangerous," said the former British prime minister.

According to the data provided by Blair, Christians and Muslims know very little about each other. "Most Christians want better relations between Christianity and Islam but believe most Muslims don't," said Blair. The British leader underlined that in a recent survey; only 40 percent of Europeans said that religion was an important part of their lives. In the US, this number rose to 70 percent whereas in Muslim countries it exceeded 80 percent.

Blair hopes that his foundation will show how faith can help solve materialistic problems that plague the contemporary world. Religion, says the British statesman, can join people of different denominations in one common effort towards the better future.

Krzys Wasilewski is a NewsBlaze journalist, particularly interested in history and literature that expands his love of travel and historical curiosity.If you have any comments or suggestions, please write to: krzys.wasilewski@yahoo.com.

Labels: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Krzys Wasilewski, Tony Blair

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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Book Review: The roots of violence in religion

Reviewed by Allan F. Wright

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Abraham's Curse: The Roots of Violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam
By Bruce Chilton. Doubleday (New York, 2008). 260 pp. $24.95.

Do Judaism, Christianity and Islam share a common ancestor whose obedience to God taps into the root of today's violence in the name of religion? Bruce Chilton, professor of religion at Bard College, rector of an Episcopal church in Barrytown, N.Y., and former member of the Jesus Seminar, poses this very thought in his book, "Abraham's Curse: The Roots of Violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam."

The thesis of Chilton's work rests upon the idea that the violence we see in the three major monotheistic religions of today (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is spearheaded by the "Aqedah," or God's command to Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, in the Book of Genesis. Chilton bookends his work with references to the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001, and examines the common thread that links violence to religion. He pursues his argument that most violence in the name of religion can be traced back to this "Aqedah" with excerpts pulled from the Scripture and the Quran.

In the Genesis account according to the Hebrew Scriptures, Abraham obeys God's command to sacrifice his son on Mount Moriah, but at the last moment an angel stops him, saying Abraham has proved his faith by his willingness to obey. God himself points to a more suitable sacrifice: a ram caught in a thicket, which signals to many the end of human sacrifice in the name of God.

Chilton maintains that the original meaning of the story is that human sacrifice is not God's will. He successfully shows how all three religions, in times of persecution, have twisted this meaning to glorify martyrdom.

The title of the book is somewhat misleading as the reader may expect a survey of the many acts of violence and war in the holy books of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. However, the author overextends the idea that almost all acts of violence in the name of religion stem from the "Aqedah" account in Genesis. Chilton omits the concept that the sinfulness of man is often a root cause or explanation for violence.

Chilton expends much effort in the early chapters aiming to prove his point about the "Aqedah." However, he overreaches in his exegesis, forcing many occasions of violence found in the Scriptures to this one event. Obedience to God is the focus of the call of Abraham's sacrifice of his son, not violence. Throughout the first 90 pages of the book Chilton references extrabiblical texts and legends, muddled in clarity, to the text we find in Genesis. Unfortunately, this can be confusing for the reader.

Throughout the book there are references made that are not in line with Catholic theology. One glaring example is when Chilton says that "Jesus did not originally refer to his own personal body and blood" in the meals he shared with his disciples but the meaning came later, "in the Hellenistic environment of St. John's Gospel." If Jesus did not communicate the teaching that his "flesh is real food," then one can naturally question which Scripture passages are authentic and which are made up by the community. Chilton's association with the Jesus Seminar assemblage is evident in such interpretations.

In St. Paul's writings to the Galatians, the "Aqedah" is the occasion where the Abrahamic covenant takes on its greatest theological significance. This event serves as the pinnacle when Abraham's faith and God's promise reach their fullest expression. God's promises to Abraham and, in turn, Abraham's faith, are the two strands from which St. Paul eloquently explains his theology and the promise that follows. The faith of Abraham brings to completion the divine promise to all generations --- not an act of violence. Chilton does not mention St. Paul's interpretation which should be included because of St. Paul's influence on Christianity.

From the Islamic viewpoint, Chilton points to multiple texts in the Quran and incidents throughout Islamic history that use the Abrahamic sacrifice or the "Feast of Sacrifice" as a touchstone that likens the "Aqedah" in Judaism and Christianity to the Muslim faith. Again, this premise is designed to link the "Aqedah" to violence in all three religions.

Overall, Chilton offers an interesting perspective on the origin of violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He does provide food for thought on the violence that exists today, all alleged to be done in the name of God.

Labels: Abraham, Aqedah, Bruce Chilton, Christianity, Islam, Jesus, Judaism, religion, violence

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Friday, March 28, 2008

Karen Armstrong - Charter for Compassion

As she accepts her 2008 TED Prize, author and scholar Karen Armstrong talks about how the Abrahamic religions -- Islam, Judaism, Christianity -- have been diverted from the moral purpose they share to foster compassion. But Armstrong has seen a yearning to change this fact. People want to be religious, she says; we should act to help make religion a force for harmony. She asks the TED community to help her build a Charter for Compassion -- to help restore the Golden Rule as the central global religious doctrine.

Labels: Christianity, compassion, God, Golden Rule, Islam, Judaism, Karen Armstrong, religion, video

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Thursday, March 06, 2008

Pew Survey: Demographers dispute snapshot of American Jews

By Sue Fishkoff
Published: Wednesday, March 5, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) -- American Jews are adopting and discarding their Jewish identities with increasing rapidity in a country that is becoming less white and less Christian, according to a new study of religious affiliation in the United States. But just hours after the study’s publication on Feb. 24, Jewish demographers were disputing some of the findings on Jews.

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, shows how Jews fit into a national religious mosaic that is shifting at ever-increasing speed. Some of the findings about Jews, including the high income and educational levels, came as no surprise, as they mirror the results of earlier Jewish-only population studies.

Leading Jewish demographers, including those who worked on the National Jewish Population Studies of 1990 and 2000-2001 (NJPS), dispute some of the Pew data relating to American Jewry, particularly the figures about converts to and from Judaism.

“While we can learn a lot from this kind of survey in a general sense, in terms of Jews per se we have to be cautious because they’re such a small part of the sample,” said Jonathon Ament, the assistant director of research at the United Jewish Communities and the senior project adviser on the 2000-2001 NJPS. The NJPS survey included 4,523 respondents. With fewer than 700 Jewish respondents and a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 points that Ament calls “quite high,” he said the Pew report should be “taken with a grain of salt.” Pew researchers say the sample size is statistically sound.

Finding the total number of Jews has often been a source of controversy within the Jewish community. The Pew study arrives at its own numbers, suggesting the continuing difficulty of defining who is a Jew. Pew counted an estimated 3.8 million Jews, or 1.7 percent of the total American adult population. The NJPS counted 4.1 million Jewish adults out of a total Jewish population of 5.2 million. Some thought the NJPS underestimated the Jewish population, including Brandeis University's Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, which offered its own estimate of 6 million to 6.4 million.

But it was the findings on converts to and from Judaism, which involve controversial definitions -- including "Who is a Jew" -- that drew the most skepticism among Jewish demographers. According to the Pew study, 15 percent of America's nearly 4 million Jewish adults were not raised as Jews. That means, Pew researchers said, they either converted to Judaism or embraced the Judaism of one of their parents or grandparents. The study also reports that 9 percent of adults who were raised Jewish now profess another faith. Four percent of those former Jews are now Protestant, about half of them evangelicals; 1 percent are Catholic; and nearly 5 percent belong to a non-Christian faith, ranging from Islam to Buddhism to a New Age religion.

Still, the report found that Jews and Hindus are the most successful at retaining their people.

More than 84 percent of those who were raised Hindu still identify as Hindu, followed by 76 percent of those raised Jewish who say they are Jewish today. Fourteen percent of those raised Jewish now identify with no organized religion.

Judaism, Catholicism and Hinduism are the three faith groups filled with the highest percentage of born followers. Eighty-five percent of today's Jewish adults were raised as Jews, vs. the 15 percent of today's Jews who have "joined" the community. Ninety percent of today's Hindu adults were born and raised Hindu, along with 89 percent of Catholics.

Other highlights of the Pew report include:

* Jews are tied with Mormons as the sixth largest faith group, each claiming 1.7 percent of the country’s adult population.

* There are twice as many adult Jews as adult Muslims.

* Jews rank fourth among religious groups most likely to marry in the faith. According to Pew, 69 percent of married Jews are married to another Jew -- the same figure reported by the 2000 NJPS.

* Of the 31 percent of Jews married to someone of a different faith or no faith, the largest percentage, 12 percent, are married to Catholics. The faith groups most likely to marry their own are Hindus, Mormons and Catholics.

* The most highly educated faith communities are Hindus (48 percent with post-graduate degrees) followed by Jews (35 percent), compared to the national average of 10 percent.

* Two percent of America’s 1.57 million Buddhists were raised Jewish.

When it comes to drawing a Jewish picture from the Pew study, it’s difficult to compare the results to the National Jewish Population Study because it is rare to find the exact same questions or categories in both studies. In addition, the NJPS and other Jewish-sponsored population studies use a combination of self-identification and behavioral questions to arrive at a nuanced understanding of who is a Jew, whereas the Pew report allowed respondents to declare their own religious identity.

The conversion figures offered by the Pew study differ from those of other Jewish studies. The 1990 NJPS showed that 180,000 people had converted to Judaism, comprising 3 percent of the total Jewish population. The 2000-2001 NJPS did not report the number of converts to Judaism, so it’s impossible to make comparison with the Pew report’s statement that 15 percent of today’s Jewish adults were not raised Jewish.

“What does ‘raised Jewish’ mean?” asks demographer Bruce Phillips of Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, who also worked on the 2000-2001 NJPS. “To you and me it might mean someone went to Hebrew school,” but the respondents answering the Pew study were not asked to elaborate.

Similarly, the 1990 NJPS showed that 210,000 Jews had converted out of Judaism, representing nearly 4 percent of American Jewry. By the time of the 2000-2001 NJPS, that figure had risen to just above 5 percent, along with an additional 7.6 percent who said they had left Judaism for no religion. The NJPS total of 12.6 percent is less than the 23 percent of Jews who told Pew researchers that they now professed no religion or had joined another faith. But some of that difference can be ascribed to definitions used by the study organizers.

Pew researchers acknowledge these “definitional issues,” said Green, a senior researcher on the project. But that was not the focus of the Pew study. The study was concerned with measuring how much movement there is into and out of faith groups rather than in describing exactly what those faith-shifters are discarding and adopting, or why.

Labels: Hindus, Jews, Judaism, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, Sue Fishkoff, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey

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Monday, February 04, 2008

Religious converts

Changing religions or denominations is growing phenomenon today in United States

By C. Samantha McKevie
Saturday, February 02, 2008

Please click on External link at the bottom to read the whole article, including personal stories of faith-journeys from one religion to another, and one denomination to another.

Kelley Culver grew up in Houston as a Southern Baptist; Fatima Khiyaty was reared Catholic just outside of Cleveland; and Sonja Ozturk was brought up in a Lutheran family in Green Bay, Wis.

Mr. Culver made a pit stop as a Methodist before converting to Catholicism six years ago.

Mrs. Khiyaty and Mrs. Ozturk left Christianity altogether and are now Muslims.

They are not alone.

Although some people live their lives content with being part of one denomination or faith, others change denominations or switch to a different religion altogether.

Changing from one denomination to another within Christianity is not that unusual, said the Rev. Don Saliers, a Methodist minister and an adjunct professor of theology and worship at Emory University.

"Because of the ecumenical context in American Christianity and a lot more social mobility, shifting from one denomination to another is very different from 50 years ago, though in radical conversion experiences, there can still be great personal trauma," he said. "But shifting denominations is quite common. There is much more 'church shopping' when a family now moves to a new city.

Steve Tipton, a professor of sociology and religion at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, said there is "a lot more denominational switching going on now than a few years ago and indeed a generation ago."

"The rates increase with education and age together, and in particular with intermarriage," he said. "If the Christian woman or man marries a Muslim, one of them is likelier to convert.

When switching major religions -- such as Christianity to Muslim or Judaism to Christianity -- a lot more is involved, the Rev. Saliers said.

"The conversion from one religion to another requires a much deeper change of relationships -- family ties, cultural setting and context -- than does most inter-Christian conversions or changes," he said.

LOOK AT THE CHANGES

Barry Kosmin is co-author of Religion in a Free Market, a book that presents the results of the American Religious Identification Survey. The survey tracked adult Americans by their religious traditions and ethnicity from 1990-2001.

In its chapter on religious switching, the book states that "about 16 percent of the nation's population reported that at some point in their lives they had changed their religious preference or identification."

WHO'S MOVING WHERE

Catholics, Methodists, Protestants in general and Jews were among the groups that had significantly higher percentages of people switching out of their faiths.

General Christians, Pentecostals, non-denominationals, evangelicals, Muslims and Buddhists had higher percentages of people switching into their faiths.

The biggest trend he found, though, is a switch to no religion at all, which was the choice of many of the people who left Catholicism, Methodism and Islam, he said.

"The other big trend is mainline, the old people, becoming born-again and joining evangelicals, non-denominational or Christian churches.

In two thirds of marriages where one person switched to the other's religion, it was the woman who switched to make the accommodations, he said.

The switch to Islam occurs mainly among black men and among women who marry Muslims, he said.

Labels: Barry Kosmin, C. Samantha McKevie, Catholic, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, religion

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Friday, October 19, 2007

History of Religion Video

How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world's most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Ready, Set, Go!

Labels: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, religion, video, war

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Sunday, September 09, 2007

Where do all the prayer notes go?

By Ari Rabinovitch
Sun Sep 2, 8:19 PM ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - People from around the world place their prayers in Jerusalem's Western Wall or mail them to "God, Jerusalem." It's Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz who clears them up.

Millions of people a year visit the Western Wall -- one of Judaism's holiest sites -- and leave a written prayer on pieces of paper wedged into the cracks of the ancient stones.

The tradition has been adopted by members of many faiths around the world. It is very common for Christian pilgrims traveling through the Old City of Jerusalem to stop by the Western Wall and leave a note, the rabbi says.

As Rabbi of the Western Wall, it is up to Rabinowitz to make sure there's room for future paper wishes. Twice a year his team collects hundreds of thousands of notes and buries them on Jerusalem's Mount of Olives.

At most hours of the day the Western Wall is lined with people deep in prayer. Many lean forward and touch their foreheads to the stones. With eyes closed, they whisper their wishes and kiss the wall when they have finished praying.

Rabinowitz and a dozen workers sweep the wall with wooden sticks in order to reach up high to snare the notes closest to the heavens.

They never read them and have never counted the number of scripted prayers, but in each collection there are enough to fill about 100 shopping bags, each with thousands of notes, Rabinowitz said.

The rabbi's office, which manages the site, estimates that more than 5 million people visited the Western Wall in 2006. Israel's Tourism Ministry said that about 1.5 million of them were foreign tourists.

Because the notes are never read by those who collect them it is impossible to know the religion of the people who sent them, the rabbi said.

"You can ask for anything. You spill your heart and then you leave strengthened," said Moshe Azolai, 29, who visited the site with relatives from the United States.

REMNANT

The Western Wall is a remnant of the compound of the Second Temple that was destroyed in 70 AD. It stands today beneath a religious plaza known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

The entire wall stretches about 500 meters (1,650 feet), although much of it is concealed underground. The exposed part where people gather to pray is about 50 meters (165 feet) long and about 15 meters (50 feet) high.

Israel captured the Western Wall together with Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war.

The tradition of leaving notes started nearly 300 years ago when a rabbi sent his students with a prayer in writing because he was unable to make the journey, Rabinowitz said.

BURN OR BURY

An entire chapter in one of Rabinowitz's books deals with the issue of discarding the Western Wall notes.

"There is an old argument about whether to burn the notes or bury them," Rabinowitz said.

According to Jewish law, it is forbidden to destroy holy texts. Instead, prayer books and scriptures are "reposited" in containers and often buried in Jewish cemeteries.

But long before notes were stuck in the Western Wall, it was custom for religious Jews to place prayer notes at the graves of rabbis considered holy. Traditionally, these notes are burned.

Rabinowitz said burning is a pure way to deal with the notes, but burying them according to Jewish tradition is more honorable.

Even with the rabbi's twice-a-year cleaning -- the next one will take place before the Jewish New Year in mid-September -- finding a snug spot in the wall for a note can be a challenge.

Yaniv Singer, 28, who led a tour group that visited the Western Wall, had trouble placing his prayer.

"It fell out of about three places before I managed to stick it in a crack way up high," he said.

Labels: Ari Rabinovitch, Judaism, prayer, Western Wall

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Friday, August 24, 2007

Poll: For Christians' identity, it's faith first, U.S. second

Editor's note: This is part of a series of reports CNN.com is featuring for "God's Warriors," a documentary hosted by CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour.

(CNN) -- Most Christians are more likely to describe themselves as Christian first and American second, according to a new CNN poll examining religious views in the United States.

A new poll finds that Christian respondents would describe themselves as "Christian" before "American."

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll found that of the 750 Christians in the survey, 59 percent identify themselves first by their faith, then as Americans, while 36 percent described themselves in the reverse.

CNN's findings are not that different from those in a recent Pew Research Center poll on Muslim-American attitudes. In that poll, 47 percent of Muslims in America say they are Muslim first, American second. Younger Muslims were especially likely to feel that way: 60 percent of them responded they were Muslim first.

CNN's research also found that Americans are now less likely to see the possibility for peace between Islam and Christianity. Of the total 1,029 adult Americans polled, 53 percent say conflict is inevitable between the two religions, up from 45 percent in 2003. Explore Americans' views on religions »

Those polled also said Islam was the religion most likely to use violence. Sixty-eight percent believe Islam is the religion most likely to have followers who would use violence to spread their religion, compared to 11 percent for Christianity and 4 percent for Judaism.

When asked about religion-related violence in the United States, about nine in 10 said they personally would not be willing to kill another person to uphold a religious belief or advance a religious cause. But asked how many other Americans would do so, more than a third responded "many" and "some;" a third said "few" and a quarter said "almost no Americans."

The CNN poll also found that 62 percent say that American society has strayed too far from its religious foundation in the past 50 years, while answers were split almost evenly on religion as a factor in government policy. Forty-five percent said religion should have no influence on government decisions, while 36 percent say it should have some influence, but not the major factor.

When it comes to the Bible, CNN's poll found that 57 percent say they believe the Book of Revelations' description of the violent end of the world, where all but Christians perish. Nearly one in five believes it will happen in their lifetime.

But of the 750 Christians in the poll, nearly eight in 10 said that people of other beliefs could get into heaven, while only 17 percent believe that only Christians can.

The poll was conducted between June 22-24, 2007, with a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Labels: Americans, Christian, CNN, Islam, Judaism, Muslims, Pew Research Center survey

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Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Exclusive global CNN documentary 'God's Warriors' examines religion, power and politics

Protestors who kill for their religious beliefs. "Patriot Pastors" who seek to change American culture through the ballot box. Zealots who target prime ministers and presidents with assassination for "subverting God's will." Parents who reject science education in conflict with their religious principles. Suicide martyrs who are revered as iconic heroes. These are "God's Warriors" of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. They see contemporary society as corrupt and view themselves as the front line of defense in a battle for cultural supremacy and political power. They are changing the world.

CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour journeyed to eight countries over eight months to report for God's Warriors, an exclusive global CNN documentary about the global phenomenon of religious fervor upon politics, culture and public life . During six hours broadcast over three consecutive nights, CNN will reveal how "God's Warriors" want to bring religion back from the periphery to the center of public life – and how far they are willing to go to transform modern society.

God's Warriors includes thought-provoking interviews with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter; the late Rev. Jerry Falwell in his last television interview; Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Muslim women's rights advocate; Yehuda Etzion, a founder of the Israeli settlement movement; and Israeli President Shimon Peres.

A companion website to God's Warriors offers users show excerpts from the documentary, an audio podcast and an exclusive video diary that goes behind-the-scenes. This online content will be available at http://edition.cnn.com/godswarriorsopk . The podcast will also be available for download from iTunes.

Labels: Christiane Amanpour, Christianity, culture, Islam, Judaism, politics, religion

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Monday, July 23, 2007

America Goes Kosher

Madonna drinks Canaan wine, Paris Hilton orders kosher steaks, Bono eats sushi under the supervision of the Beth Din, Donald Trump holds his meetings at one of Manhattan’s kosher restaurants – and everyone burns calories to the tunes of Sarit Haddad and Eyal Golan. Kosher is trendy in the USA

Yaniv Halili Published:
07.06.07

This latest American trend has celebrities enquiring about the coveted kashrut seal before letting a morsel of food touch their mouths. Apart from Madonna (who has a private room at the Prime Grill), many others are rushing around in search of steaks from cows that were slaughtered under the supervision of a rabbi.

A not very trendy 3300 years late, Americans are discovering that kosher food is both healthy and spiritual. The subject is complex, but it is encouraging to realize that we were right all these years and that it was worth insisting on manna in the desert. New kosher restaurants are opening all the time in big cities throughout the United States, offering dishes that have not been boiled to death. Kosher products are finding themselves on supermarket shelves and major producers in the dairy industry are strict about having the kosher stamp on their product labels, knowing that the “gentiles” want kosher products too. Even Hollywood is slowly turning kosher: the current most popular restaurant is a kosher meat and sushi bar where paparazzi photographers have a permanent place at the entrance.

Kosher Buddhism

Until recently, the words “kosher food” would have the average person running away rather than meet the dubious culinary experience. These days the two words mean prosperity. In Manhattan, kosher Chinese, French, Japanese, Indian and Iranian restaurants have opened. There is even a kosher Buddhist restaurant - indeed, Buddha spent his youth in a yeshiva.

In the last decade, kosher food sales in American supermarkets have reached a growth rate of 15 percent as opposed to a four percent growth rate for food that is not kosher. Eleven million Americans buy kosher food, and they are responsible for a yearly turnover of $9 billion. What’s interesting in all this data is that there are only just over six million Jews in America and even fewer keep kosher. Slowly but surely the kosher food market is being taken over by non-Jewish Americans who are on the lookout for kosher food that is not just gefilte fish and matza.

So, have the gentiles finally realized that Judaism is cool? Not necessarily so. In a recent survey carried out by Mintel International, 55 percent of kosher food consumers do so because they believe that kosher food is healthier, not due to religious reasons. The health merits attached to the kashrut seal are welcomed by mouths wide open: this last year Americans have had to swallow avian flu, mass poisoning and E.Coli bacteria.

The American Health Department’s statistics are scary: 76 million people - one in four Americans - suffer each year from diseases caused by spoiled food. As the numbers of diseases rise, so does people’s awareness and conscious consumers are on the look out for alternatives.

Kosher food is popular mostly amongst health food fans and strict vegetarians who can eat at a dairy restaurant and be sure that no suspicious pieces of meat will find their way into their plates and that they won't meet chunks of smoked bacon in their salads.

Americans like the fact that kosher food is prepared under the watchful eyes of supervisors, often more than one, and kosher restaurants in Manhattan are proud to announce that “all the food here is prepared under strict supervision”. This impresses the customers, even if the watchful eyes are those of a kashrut supervisor who is only making sure that the dairy and meat utensils stay separate from each other.

A survey published just before Independence Day shows that Hebrew National sausages made of 100 percent beef is the highest selling brand in America. Muslims and Christians too are among Americans who eat kosher food. Certain Christian groups follow a diet that is prepared “in the spirit of the Bible.”

And for dessert Eyal Golan

The kosher trend in New York got a big push last year when Madonna arrived in the city for her Confessions tour. After each show, she packed up her dancers and musicians and took them all to the Prime Grill for a steak. These intimate gatherings got a lot of coverage by the local press and the fashion police raised an eyebrow at the relatively unknown establishment that Madonna chose to eat and party at. Madonna doesn’t come to this restaurant only for its food; the owners play Israeli music and are sure that the songs of Sarit Haddad will make the desserts taste even sweeter. Madonna finds it hard to contain her excitement.

Madonna is a sure bet for kosher food, but a rather more unexpected personality who has found her happiness in kosher land is Paris Hilton. The idea that the young heiress finds solace in something that is not studded with diamonds has young Hollywood girls rushing to the Prime Grill in Beverly Hills. The tabloids and entertainment TV shows were amazed when Hilton chose to celebrate her birthday at the kosher sushi and meat bar. She invited 40 of her closest friends, but 200 guests showed up. “She loves our sushi”, admits the owner. “Before her birthday she asked us to prepare a lot of sushi, but she was most concerned about us baking a cake for her.”

Even now, from the heights of the garbage dumps she’s in, Hilton doesn’t forget where she came from and who fed her. Although her plea to bring kosher catering to her jail cell didn’t come through, two weeks ago during the embarrassing fiasco when she was under house arrest, she celebrated her temporary freedom feasting on kosher catering.

But even the huge amounts of kosher food that are going into Hilton’s mouth still don’t qualify it as trendy. So Sasha Baron-Cohen (“Borat”) steps in to help. The English star probably leaves half his monthly salary at the Prime Grill. Baron-Cohen is seen so often at the Hollywood branch of the Prime Grill that the sight of a fork is rarer.

“Sasha eats only kosher food, so he has no choice”, says the owner. “He loves steaks and eats a lot, often complementing his meals with expensive, kosher Israeli wine. He celebrated his Oscar nomination here with his fiancée and a few friends. But for Sasha, a meal is not a meal if it doesn’t have Eyal Golan, Kobi Peretz or Shlomi Shabbat singing in the background. He says these songs remind him of Tel Aviv.”

Signing deals over steaks

The celebrity-watch website TMZ.com reported that Donald Trump has connected to his lost roots, and not the roots of his hair: Trump has turned the Manhattan kosher restaurant Solo into his boardroom. Bono also pops in from time to time, and when he’s not snacking on flies in Africa, he keeps to his ideals and eats only kosher or organic. When he dines at Solo he insists on ordering the salmon in miso and at the Prime Rib he eats kosher sushi.

But, in spite of the star dust being sprinkled over kosher foods, some claim that making kosher trendy is not a kosher thing to do. Most in the Jewish community are not swayed by star dust and are against turning Judaism into “a modern, trendy cult,” says one of the heads of the rabbinical committee in America, who choose to ignore the phenomenon. “This is just a fashion that will soon disappear”, he says. “Everything Jewish is suddenly popular, but after the noise has quietened down and the storm has passed, only the core will remain, but anyway, the core is what’s important in Judaism.”

There are also some who understand that the phenomenon is typical of the American society, which adopts a new ritual every 15 minutes, heralds it as the new king and discards it when the next trend starts to bloom. “Obviously Madonna has played her part in making kosher trendy, but there is a wider issue of self-searching at hand,” says David Deutsch. “After Scientology and Buddhism, it’s now Judaism’s turn. Judaism has been around for a long time and that makes people ask how it’s managed to last so long and wonder what its secret can be. It’s like a closed family where people want to peep inside and see the beauty.”

But why kosher food now?

“The kosher trend fits in with modern life. Like the Kabbalah, it combines the old with the new. Kosher food meets spirituality and health in one plate, and that’s what people are looking or today: a little spirituality with an everyday practicality. Add to that the celeb quality and the fact that Hollywood has many famous Jews that people want to imitate. It’s very easy being Jewish in America today.”

Labels: America, food, health, Judaism, kashrut seal, kosher, Madonna, Paris Hilton, spirituality, Yaniv Halili

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Saturday, March 31, 2007

Finding simplicity and beauty

by Interfaith Works or The Olympian.

It has been reported that when Albert Einstein was asked about the secret that holds the universe together, he replied, "When we discover it, the answer will be simple and beautiful."

We are bombarded by the complexities of life everywhere we turn; we are exposed to more information in a few years than our ancestors 100 years ago ever had to contend with. It seems like we are drowning in knowledge and thirsting for wisdom. The Rev. Richard Rohr noted that we can put a man on the moon, but fathers don't know how to talk to their sons.

The great commandments are simple - love God and each other with the same passion - yet it seems that such simplicity asks too much of us, so we build nuance upon commentary, and in so doing, free ourselves from the obligation to love.

We are entering a holy season for many and it invites us into a period of reflecting upon the wisdom of our faith. In April alone, we will be celebrating Passover, Holy Week, Easter, the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the Buddha's birthday.

Faith traditions offer simple guidance that shimmers across the spiritual landscape, but there is something within us that resists such wisdom. Perhaps it's because we don't like the challenge that such simple words offer to our sense of sophistication.

To celebrate this season of rebirth and renewal, I would like to offer a few words from the major faith traditions, hoping to entice each of us to return to our roots and know the joy that wisdom brings.

In Buddhism: "Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is it healed." The Dhammapada, Chapter 1, verse 5

In Christianity: "Love your enemies and pray for those who hurt you." Matthew 5:44

In Judaism: "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8

In Islam: "Those who act kindly in this world will have kindness." Qur'an 39.10

Can you imagine what human history would look like if people of faith had taken these simple injunctions seriously? My prayer is that for these days of April, each of us, regardless of our tradition, would return to the sources of our faith and see what simple words would nourish our souls if we would but let them. Then, from that wellspring, may we come together to create a world that is simply beautiful.

The Rev. Canon David C. James is rector for St. John's Episcopal Church in Olympia.

Labels: Buddhism, Christianity, Islamic, Judaism, simplicity